The imbalanced weighting of proactive control as a function of reactive control capacities in high risk-taking

According to the dual mechanisms of control (DMC), both reactive and proactive control are involved in adjusting behaviors when those are not appropriate to the environment. However, some contextual and inter-individual factors increase the weight of one control mechanism over the other, by influencing their costs. According to the DMC, poor reactive control capacities should be counterbalanced by greater proactive control involvement to ensure control efficiency. However, to our knowledge, no studies have yet investigated this postulate. Moreover, as the flexible weighting between reactive and proactive control is key for adaptive behaviors, we expected that maladaptive behaviors, such as risk-taking, would be characterized by an absence of such counterbalance. A total of 176 adults performed two reaction time tasks (the Simon and the Stop Signal tasks) and a risk-taking assessment (the Balloon Analog Risk Taking, BART). The Stop Signal Reaction Time (SSRT) was used to assess reactive inhibition capacities and the duration of the button press in the BART was used as an index of risk-taking propensity. The post-error slowing (PES) in the Simon task was used to reflect the individuals’ tendency to proactively adjust behaviors after an error. Results showed that poorer reactive inhibition capacities predicted greater proactive adjustments after an error. However, the higher the risk-taking propensity, the less the efficiency of reactive inhibition capacities predicted proactive behavioral adjustments. This finding suggests that higher risk-taking is associated with a smaller weighting of proactive control in response to limited reactive inhibition capacities. These results are discussed in regard of the emergence of maladaptive behaviors.